Kate McDowell on Storytelling

From sweltering to blissfully cool... this is the norther midwestern summer.  Humidity is low, sunshine is bright, everything is leafy and alive.  What better time to read on a screened porch? I've just finished  The Great Gatsby  after seeing the recent movie adaptation in St. Louis with my friend Ellen from 7th grade.  Who is also an English professor.  The movie was close enough to the book that it's a bit like re-reading with the images already in my head.  What I notice from the language alone is how very shallow the connection between Daisy and Gatsby really seems to be.  As a teenager, I infused her coyness with my imagination of depth, but if you read the words on the page they are surprisingly flat.  It's obvious from the first moment that Daisy comes to the cottage that she's used to (and thrilled by) people falling in love with her, a chaotic penchant if there ever was one.  Ultimately, it strikes me that the phrase "first ...

The Urbana Free Library controversy rages on.  Without decisive action on the part of the board, I predict that the conflicts will escalate until we're back in national media in a much bigger way.  I think this has potential to become the poster-child case for discrediting a particular outside consultant's methods as well as for what it looks like when leaders attempt to quietly implement visions not supported by their community.  And refuse to compromise. Meanwhile, I'm returning some books, including Alberto Manguel's The Library at Night .    Initially, I was captivated by the poetry of this book, and excited to see a chapter on "Library as Space" (p. 65-104).  But the content of that chapter ends with Carnegie, and he'd make a better starting point than ending point.  It's a soothing read, but not one I'll be finishing all the way through.  Also returning City Reading:  Written Words and Public Spaces in Antebellum New York, which goes ...